Revision history for Perl extension Games::Object.

0.11 Wed Oct 15 2003

This is a patch release only to fix critical bugs:

• Fixed bug in save() where -filename was not parsed properly.
• Fixed bug in define_relation() where the relate_method was being used as the name passed from the relator instead of the actual name of the relationship. Changed relate.t test to tickle this bug again if it ever resurfaces.
• Adding manager code broke flag inheritance. Fixed. Also added missing tests for flag inheritance to inherit.t
• Undefined flags no longer croak(), but instead simply return false, in order to be consistent with the way attributes work.

0.10 Tue Jul 29 2003

        WARNING: This version is a redesign of several key components of the
        system. This version is most likely incompatible with all older
        versions.

        Instead of using Games::Object as the object manager as well as the
        object structure, a new Games::Object::Manager module has been added.
        A manager acts as a container for objects, thus stuff that used to
        be functions (like Find(), Process(), etc) are now methods on the
        manager. Thus you can manage several lists of self-contained objects.
        This is much more in keeping with an overall OO approach.

        The event system was ripped out and rewritten from scratch. The
        new version is much more integrated into the objects, so it appears
        more seamless. This has the nice side-effect of getting rid of the
        GlobalObject kludginess. The new code is actually smaller than the
        original.

        With the introduction of object managers, I have been able to provide
        a framework for defining and tracking object relationships. Object
        inheritance is now simply a predefined object relationship referenced
        by the Games::Object module.

        Ripped out the class registration code for non-Games::Object derived
        object references. Instead, I simply require that you have a load() and
        save() method to handle file IO (id and find methods no longer needed).
        This is more in keeping with OO programming methodology.

        A new flag provided to have simplified accessor methods autocreated
        for you when adding attributes (and yes, I considered using AUTOLOAD,
        but I don't much care for it because of the inheritance nightmare,
        and to quote the Perl Cookbook: "AUTOLOAD eventually begins to feel
        like a kludge piled on a hack piled on a workaround")

        User-defined object flags are created on objects on the fly as needed,
        much like attributes, rather than requiring the user to predefine
        them globally.

        You can now choose the starting ID for auto-generated object IDs (object
        IDs now maintained by the object manager module).

        Fixed bug where -w on Perl 5.8.0 gave "v-string ... non-portable"
        warning.

        Added overloaded operators so objects can be compared more easily.

        You can now specify an arbitrary filter function when processing all
        objects in a manager (i.e. the functionality handled by Process()
        in previous versions).

        Adjusted some tests to deal with Perl 5.8.0 weirdness causing false
        test failures on some platforms (this one a suspected mathematical
        precision problem).

0.05 Mon Nov 25 2002

        Added a feature that allows a more deterministic way of specifying
        processing order of objects with the same priority.

        Fixed a false assumption problem in event.t that caused a test
        failure under Perl 5.8.0.

        Persistent mods can now be made to take effect immediately by adding
        -apply_now => 1 to the mod_attr() call. This indirectly helps
        alleviate the timing issue with process(), enough that I have removed
        it from the BUGS section.

        Persistent mods can now work properly with attributes at OOB conditions.
        This was more a documentation change than a code change, as this
        feature was always present, but was not obvious from the docs.

        Added ability to inherit attribute values via object parenting. Added
        the corresponding inherit.t test suite.

        Made some corrections to examples in the POD docs.

0.04 Sat Jun 8 2002

        Much of the changes here are to support the upcoming release of the
        Games::TileMap module.

        This module now requires a minimum Perl version of 5.6.0.

        Added ability to assert validity of ID in Find() and fail if not valid.

        Added the Id() function to achieve similar assertion functionality.

        Added the objectDestroyed event, triggered when destroy() is called on
        an object.

        Added attr_ref() to allow attributes to be used in -textvariable
        and -variable options in Perl Tk widgets.

        Fixed bug in load() that caused an annoying but harmless "substr
        outside of string" warning under -w if the save file had undefined
        hash values.

        Documented the attribute flags and added flag ATTR_AUTOCREATE.

0.03 Sat Apr 6 2002

        Completely reworked the event handling mechanism to allow events
        to be targeted for specific objects.

        Events also now trigger as soon as they happen. Queueing them didn't
        really make any sense once I really looked at it.

        The "round" option for -on_fractional now works properly.

        Added events objectLoaded and objectSaved to allow for class-specific
        data manipulation.

        Fixed bug where the persistent mod table was not being initialized
        properly and probably caused perl to complain under -w, though the
        code still worked.

        Altered the default process_list by removing the second call to
        process_queue(), since the changes to the event structure obviates
        the need for this.

        Expanded the priority.t test suite to cover tend-to and persistent mods.

        Added event.t test suite.

        Corrected some erroneous examples in the docs.

        Put the perldoc stuff into a separate file, as it was growing
        as large as the code itself.

0.02 Sun Feb 24 2002

        The docs stated that a reference to an object subclassed to
        Games::Object assigned to an attribute of 'any' would save/load
        the reference correctly. Now it really does.

        The docs also stated that GLOB references worked in the -file
        parameter to new(), load(), and save(). Now they really do.

        Added attr_exists() and del_attr().

        attr() and raw_attr() no longer croak with the attribute does not
        exist; they simply return undef instead.

        Added 'readable_filename' as a datatype to FetchParams()

        Added function TotalObjects()

        Added some missing tests to loadsave.t (object references and
        PLACEHOLDER functionality)

0.01 Sun Jan 20 2002

        Initial alpha release. Probably stable, but lacking in some polish
        and some functionality. Reasonably comprehensive docs, though.